


Pianissimo

by Apuzzlingprince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Warning: general disturbing themes, Warning: non-explicit dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7456444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apuzzlingprince/pseuds/Apuzzlingprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not wise for the living to make contact with the truly lost, Harry." </p><p>Harry makes a terrible mistake while at Kings Cross Station and pays the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pianissimo

The texture of the flayed creature’s skin reminded Harry of leather. It was thick, bumpy and shiny red, and as he cradled it to his chest it seemed to extract all the warmth from Harry’s own skin. He didn’t mind. The poor thing was freezing cold; it needed all the warmth it could get. No matter how repellent it was, he couldn’t leave it to suffer.

Its moaning had died down. It was now instead peering up at him with beady red eyes, examining its saviour. One of its skeletal hands was resting on Harry’s knuckles in a gesture he could have interpreted as grateful had he thought the creature had the capacity to feel. It seemed to him as mindless as a common rodent, responding only to physical stimuli with no comprehension of what was happening. That just made it all the more pitiful.

“Harry,” a voice bellowed out from behind him. “Harry, put it down! Do so immediately!”

Startled by the voice, Harry wasn’t able to prevent the creature from tumbling out of his arms and to the floor, landing with a thump upon the cement. It resumed moaning and withering almost immediately.

“Harry!” the bellowing continued. “Step away! You mustn’t touch it again-!”

And then Harry was peeling open his eyes to an even greater light than that emitted by Dumbledore. He became aware of thin fingers curled around a handful of his pyjama shirt, shaking him from side to side. The shaking ceased as he pushed himself upright and groped around the bedside table for his glasses. When he failed to locate them, the lithe body next to his clambered over his lap and plucked his glasses from a far corner of the table, setting them gently on the bridge of his nose. He was greeted with the sight of Ginny’s pinched brow and thinned lips.

“You were moving in your sleep again,” she said. “Not another nightmare, was it?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. As far as reoccurring dreams went, this was one of the better ones. “It was another one of those Kings Cross dreams-“ Ginny grimaced. “-But I didn’t dream about dying or anything!” Harry added quickly. “It was just the station again. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Doesn’t sound like it was pleasant either, though.” Ginny gestured to their potions cabinet hanging beside the door. There were several colourful flasks of liquid visible behind the glass. “I didn’t buy all those dreamless potions so you could neglect to take them, Harry.”

“But I haven’t had bad nightmares for a while now!” Harry protested. He threw his legs over the side of the mattress and shivered upon contact with the chilly floorboards; it was mid-April, and while all the snow had melted away weeks ago, the mornings were still freezing cold.  

Ginny tossed him his dressing gown. “They count as bad if they wake _me_ up. I have work, you know.”

“S’pose you have a point,” he conceded. “I don’t like not dreaming, though. It’s disorientating to wake up that way, and I think it interrupts my REM sleep or something because I always feel drowsy after.” He manoeuvred around the bed to wrap his arms around her waist, squeezing her tight. “But I’m sorry for waking you.”

Her head fell to his shoulder. Her breath warmed his neck. “You don’t have to take them if you don’t want to, but I worry about you, you know? Sometimes your movements are really violent.”

“Violent?” Harry’s eyes blew wide. He took a step back, horrified at the implications of her comment. “I haven’t hurt you, have I? Because if I have I’ll definitely start-!”

“Oh, no, you haven’t!” said Ginny. “I mean, you make a lot of violent movements, but you’ve never hit me or anything. It’s just… troubling, that’s all.” She reached down to tie the cord of his dressing gown for him. “I'm not worried about _me_. I’m worried you’ll hurt _yourself_ one of these days.”

Relief fell in a great wave over Harry. He slumped and smiled disarmingly. “C’mon, how badly could I hurt myself in a _bed_? The most I could do is fall out or something, and you know we’d both find that hilarious after the initial panic.”

Ginny didn’t seem to see the humour in his comment.

“At least promise me you’ll take some if it gets worse.” She coiled her hands around the folds of his dressing grown and pulled him in, leaning up for a kiss. Harry gladly obliged her.

“Okay,” he said against her lips. “But only if it gets worse. I don’t want to become reliant on potions I don’t even like.”

“Fair enough.” One last kiss, and Ginny pulled away, turning to retrieve her work clothes from their wardrobe, as was her routine. She would shower, brush her teeth, brush her hair, apply her makeup, and then finally come downstairs to join Harry for a full English breakfast. He was always the one to prepare it. Not because Ginny was bad cook, but because Harry had the time to do so; he wasn’t currently employed. To become an Auror he needed a few more years of study, and while he had an exemplary resume, he’d opted to do that study instead of trying his chances with his current qualifications. He would soon be moving onto work placement in the ministry, anyway. The Auror department was eager to have him.

Ginny, meanwhile, was employed as a Quidditch team captain. There were many who had expected Harry to go into that profession, but Harry wouldn’t have enjoyed Quidditch as a long term career. It was more of a leisure activity. Once he had finished his study he would be out doing field work, fighting dark magic, and that was what he was best at.  

They ate breakfast together and exchanged a customary kiss and hug before Ginny left for work, after which Harry spent the day sitting in the lounge room reading textbooks with the fire going full blast.

* * *

The dreams didn’t abate, but nor did they get worse. Consequently, the potions in their bedroom cabinet went untouched, and Harry continued to jerk and twitch violently in his sleep. This eventually led an exhausted Ginny to migrate to the lounge room, but it was an agreeable arrangement as Ginny got to utilise the fire throughout the night (something Harry was just a little envious of). He woke up colder than usual now that Ginny was gone.

His dreams lingered on Kings Cross Station. Most of the dream was serene; just him holding the emancipated creature he had, at the time, not known to be Voldemort. It would stare curiously up at him and he would stare back, equally as curious. He would only begin to jerk around in his sleep when Dumbledore emerged to yell his warning, to pull him away, and it was getting to the point that Harry almost hated Dumbledore for disturbing the peace. Even now, Harry couldn’t see the harm in having touched the broken part of Voldemort’s soul. It was repulsive, but it hadn’t tried to harm him. It hadn’t tried to do much of anything. It’d been too far gone for that. He hadn't the faintest idea why Dumbledore had been so flustered over him holding the creature and no explanation had been forthcoming when he’d asked.

“It’s not wise for the living to make contact with the truly lost, Harry,” was all he’d said. Suitably vague and mysterious. Harry had known better than to try and extract more information from the reticent man.

These dreams were preferable to the nightmares he'd often had about Voldemort and the war and the casualties that had occurred as a consequence. While he woke up tired, at least he wasn’t waking up gasping and sweating with the names of fallen allies lodged in his throat.

* * *

Despite having moved downstairs, Ginny seemed to even more exhausted than she had been prior to the move. Her skin was a sickly grey, and her eyes, usually bright with life, were dull and listless. She had to drag herself out of bed every morning and would retire shortly after returning from work. Her inability to get proper rest made her as tense and irritable as Harry had been during the first few weeks following the war, and spending any amount of time with her usually ended in Harry being provoked into an argument, which made him tense and irritable in turn.

It was only after a month of this that Harry finally managed to convince her to go to St. Mungo’s for an examination. Unfortunately, after utilising every resource available to see what was wrong with her – something Harry had felt was unnecessary, but the St. Mungo’s staff had been eager to please the renowned Harry Potter – the healers concluded that they had no idea what was causing her fatigue. The only thing they were able to prescribe was rest, and so Ginny was to return to her parents’ house until she had recovered her strength.

“Look after yourself, okay?” said Ginny, wrapping her arms around Harry’s shoulders and planting a kiss on his lips. There were deep, blue bags under her eyes, and the sight of them made Harry wince. Her parents were going to go nuts when they saw had far her health had deteriorated.  

“You too.” He returned the kiss. “Tell Molly and Arthur hi for me, alright? I haven’t had your mum coddle me in ages.”

Ginny snorted. “Don’t worry, mum’ll probably be getting at you to have a haircut through letters once I’m home. I’ll tell her all about you growing it out to make sure.”

Scowling playfully, Harry lifted her up into his arms and started to carry her to the door. “You’re so mean to me! Make sure to tell her that as well.”

“Oh, I will!” Ginny replied between giggles.

They departed on better terms that morning than they had in weeks. Maybe some time apart would do them good, Harry thought, but it was a though that only lasted as long as it took him to realise just how lonely now having Ginny around made him. It wasn’t even past noon by the time he started missing her.

* * *

It wasn’t uncommon for Harry to have paranoid delusions. The war had left him hypersensitive to his surroundings, and when it was dark or quiet or both, the shadows seemed to hide crouched men and the innocuous creaking of the house would be interpreted as someone tiptoeing towards him. More than once he’d spent hours staring into a doorway, into the dark room beyond, hand white-knuckled around his wand while he waited for an assailant to emerge. A few times Ginny had caught him at this, but as wizards had little concept of mental health, she’d had no idea what to do for him except shove a large variety of soothing potions his way.

Right now, Harry felt as though someone was watching him while he bathed. He didn’t dare peek past the shower curtain. He knew if he gave in to his paranoia it would only be exacerbated. As soon as he stepped back beneath the shower head the thought would return, stronger than ever, and he probably wouldn’t get around to shampooing his hair before the paranoia compelled him to leave the shower and run downstairs to safety.

“Nothing’s there,” he told himself, reaching for the shampoo bottle. It was peach-scented, just like Ginny; a deliberate choice. He thumbed the lid aside and poured a sizeable amount of the viscous liquid onto his palm, then roughly applied it to his hair. The rivulets of bubbly water forced him to close his eyes. He was a little nervous to do so, still convinced someone was staring at his shadow through the shower curtain, but he was determined not to let his paranoia get the best of him.

As his fingers grazed his scalp, he couldn’t help but think of Alfred Hitchcock and the movie ‘Psycho’. He’d witnessed a number of its scenes as a child. Not through any deliberate effort on the Dursley’s part, mind you; if it had been up to them, he never even would have known of their tellys existence, but seeing as he _had_ known, he had liked to take advantage of the fact he could see the screen from the kitchen. While washing dishes, he would periodically glance up to see what Uncle Vernon was watching, and one night he had glanced up just in time to see a lady in a shower being slaughtered. He'd been so startled by the sight of the knife descending on her that he’d dropped the dish he was cleaning. It had smashed into three large fragments upon hitting the linoleum. For that, Vernon had cuffed him upside the head so hard that his ears had rung.

This train of thought led Harry to a compromise: since he had managed to shampoo his hair, he would skip the conditioning and go straight to drying off. He washed out the shampoo as fast as possible, then turned off the taps, squeezed as much water out of his hair as he could (a habit Ginny had gotten him into), and reached behind the shower curtain for a towel. After a couple of gropes, he managed to locate the pile of towels he had left on the floor. One was quickly tied around his waist, and since he was now alone in the house, he had no qualms with taking an additional two towels for his hair and shoulders.

Now sporting towels as armour, Harry felt confident enough to slide the curtain aside and survey the bathroom for potential assailants. His heart immediately lodged itself in his throat – was that a flash or colour in the mirror? But when he raised his head to check, the only thing he could see in the reflection was blue tile.

His heart resumed a normal rhythm. Stepping out of the shower, Harry roughly dried himself, threw the towels onto the rack to dry, and pulled on his pyjamas, casting a warming spell on them as he vacated the bathroom. He really needed to stop buying into his delusions.

* * *

“Are you alright, mate?”

Harry paused with his pint of mead halfway to his mouth and considered the question. He and his best friend, Ron Weasley, were sitting in the middle of an active London pub. While this might not have hindered conversation for your average wizard, it wasn't uncommon for reporters to eavesdrop on Harry while he was out in public (Rita Skeeter was, naturally, the most common culprit). All they had managed to get out of his lately was 'I'm not sure how to do laundry without a muggle machine', which wasn't exactly headline material. Harry's mental health, however? Most certainly was.

He arched an eyebrow at Ron. “Yeah, ‘course I am. Why?”

“You’ve been really quiet all night.”

Seemingly aware of Harry’s concerns, Ron leaned in and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Are you worried about Ginny? You can go to the Burrow if you want. Mom ‘n dad would love to have you.”

“No, I know she’ll be alright. I just miss her.” He swallowed a mouthful of his drink. “Our house is way too big for just one person. Makes me wish I’d got an apartment instead so I’d have roommates.” A pause, and then he turned to his best friend with a broad grin. “Hey, would you want to stay for a little while? I don’t get to see you nearly as much as I should.”

Ron’s expression lit up, but it just as quickly descended into a frown. With his lips jutted out in a pout, he nudged his glass around the bar. “I can’t. Hermione’ll want me home. She’s trying to keep it under wraps so the media won’t get involved, but we’re in the middle of planning out our wedding.”

“You are?” Harry balked. “Why didn’t you tell me!?”

Ron leaned closer to Harry’s ear, eyeing the surrounding patrons. He was now half-sitting in Harry’s seat. “Because we hadn’t decided until this week, and remember what happened last time Skeeter got wind of an important event? Complete strangers are _still_ congratulating me on our engagement. We can’t go blabbing it around.” He dropped back onto his own stool. “It’s the only way to make sure it doesn’t become a media cir-sus, or whatever that muggle thing is called.”

“I’ll definitely have to come over soon, then,” Harry murmured quietly, mostly to his glass of mead.

“It’s probably best you wait a little while. Hermione’s a mess at the moment.” Ron’s looked and sounded utterly exasperated. “She’s trying to find a healthy balance between a ‘muggle’ and ‘magic’ wedding since her family’ll be attending too, which is an impossible task if you ask me.“

“Doesn’t her immediate family already know about magic?”

“Yeah, but they haven’t interacted with it," said Ron. “She doesn’t want to scare them, but honestly, who doesn’t like magic?” Er, other than your aunt and uncle, I mean. But they were weird.”

“ _Normal_ , you mean,” Harry said dryly, trying not to recall too vividly the purple visage of his uncle and his aunts perpetually pinched lips. The only Dursley he had seen of late was Dudley, who had invited him over for an indoor barbecue with his girlfriend a few months ago, and that had been an awkward experience for everyone involved.

“Yeah? Well their version of ‘normal’ was _weird_ to _me_.” Ron scoffed. “Honestly, pellehones. Why would anything need _that_ many buttons?”

“Telephone.”

“That’s what I said.”

Harry muffed a snicker with his jacket sleeve. “When _should_ I come by, then?”

“Well, we’re gonna have some sort of pie day next Sunday.”

“A _what_ day?”

“You know, pie day. Pumpkin pies, shepherds pies, kidney pies… you’ve never had a pie day? You should definitely come then. Throw in some mead and we can make it an evening.”

“I’d love to attend your pie day,” said Harry, trying not to laugh. “I’ll bring the mead. Ever since I mentioned that I liked it within earshot of a reporter I keep on receiving parcels of it from, er…”

“Admirers?” Ron provided helpfully.

“I suppose that’s one word for them.” ‘Parasites’ would be another. On several occasions his gifts of mead had been drugged, poisoned, and enchanted. The latter was usually done in an attempt to observe Harry for the Daily Prophet, which payed generously for information on his day to day life. It was like having the paparazzi on his heels, except these ones were indefinitely more difficult to deal with due to having magic at their disposal.

He finished off the last of his mead and pushed his glass across the counter, no longer thirsty. “D’you want to go for a walk? I’ve been cooped up inside for way too long to spend all night in a bar.”

“Sure,” said Ron, hopping off of his stool. “I can tell you what plans we’ve come up with so far.” His voice dropped in volume again. “About the wedding, I mean.”

“You mean what plans _Hermione_ has come up with.”

“Yeah, well…” Ron grinned weakly. “I’m the one arranging the food, so there’s that.”

“Are you going to be serving pie?”

Ron elbowed him, glaring playfully.

* * *

Harry didn’t see Ron and Hermione as he had planned. He instead ended up wrapping himself in blankets and curling up on his settee with a box of tissues. He had, unfortunately, come down with a cold not long after his and Ron’s night on the town, and no amount of pepper-up potions were enough to make him well enough to venture out. Having put off cancelling their plans for as long as possible, Harry had the owl Ginny had gifted him on his last birthday - Hector - send his apologies to Ron and Hermione just before noon, and later that evening he received several rejuvenation potions and a large slice of shepherd’s pie in return.

Harry had to squash the pie into a fine mush before he was able to eat it, and he relished the taste of warm beef and vegetables as it slid down his aching throat. By the time he’d finished, he was wishing he had another slice to gobble down. All he had available otherwise was yet another helping of pumpkin soup, which was great, but pumpkin soup got a little boring after the fifth bowl. He licked his plate clean and set it aside, reaching for the potions to see if Hermione had whipped up anything special to soothe his aches.

Pepper up potions and rejuvenation potions were among the pile, of course, and – bless her – an entire bottle full of melted chocolate. He decided to have a few mouthfuls of the chocolate before he downed the significantly more unpleasant tasting concoctions, and was pleasantly surprised by the warmth that surged through him. She must have mixed it with some sort of painkiller. After languishing in the sudden onslaught of warmth and calm, he downed the rest of the potion and curled up on his settee, feeling fuzzy all over.

He closed his eyes, sighed, and then wrenched them open again so he could start the self-reading book he’d left on his coffee table. While in the process of nudging it closer with the tips of his fingers, his heart bounced against his rib cage-

There was someone standing in the corner of the lounge room.

It took Harry a long moment to register what he was looking at. The individual was so translucent as to almost be invisible. Their form was tall and dark, with slithers of white and red making up its skin and eyes. Harry couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. He swallowed hard and blinked rapidly in hopes it would disappear. It didn’t. It remained in the corner of his lounge room, its hunched shoulders starting to rise when it noticed Harry was staring.

Maybe it was a product of a fever. He pressed a palm to his forehead, and it _was_ warm. There was even a little sweat. Wiping his hand dry on his pyjama shirt, he reached for one of the rejuvenation potions and curled his shaking fingers around its funnel. He downed it so fast that he almost chocked on the liquid.

The figure still didn’t disappear.

“Who are you?” he croaked, casting the silhouette an uneasy look. He was starting to wonder if it was a novice report who’d tried and failed to perform an invisibility spell. If that was the case, he’d have to ask how they had managed to breach his wards.

When it didn’t respond beyond tilting its head, Harry stood and made a hesitant approach. His legs were shaking so hard that the knees were knocking together, a response born of both exhaustion and fear.

“Who are you?” he repeated. “Tell me!”

No response, and Harry’s unease was starting to give way to anger. He withdrew his wand and sent a silent stupefy the figures way, but it went straight through its body and hit the wall with a loud hiss of burning wallpaper. Harry was shocked; was it a projection of someone? He’d never seen that kind of magic before.

Thinking it safe, he reached out to prod it with his wand, and was a little disturbed as the thin plane of wood slid right into its stomach. The action didn’t provoke any sort of response. The being continued to stare at him, and Harry could see now that their eyes were red and slitted, just like-

“V-Voldemort?”

This elicited a response. The being took a step forward, into the light provided by the fireplace. The wisps of orange danced over its various crevices and curves like sun rays on water, providing Harry with enough detail to better discern its identity. However tremulous its form was, it was indeed Voldemort. The red eyes and sickly white, waxy skin were unmistakable.

He took a step back without meaning to, his eyes blown wide. He knew this to be a hallucination; Voldemort was dead, after all, and had been for years, but old habits died hard and he was putting as much distance between them as possible, his hand curled tight around the handle of his wand.

Voldemort continued to advance, observing Harry’s skittish movements with mild amusement. Harry almost tripped over some magazines scattered across the lounge room floor as he fled to the deeper depths of his house. It was darker back there, and as he slid past a bookcase, Voldemort’s form was once again rendered a barely perceptible thing. He had to squint in order to keep it within his sight.

Upon finding himself cornered, pressed up against a panel of wall, he attempted another stupefy. It went straight through the hallucination again, searing a hole into the top of the couch. Ginny wasn’t going to like that.

“Go away,” he demanded, and he wasn’t proud to admit his voice shook. He was being intimidated by something that wasn’t even real. “Go away. Go away. Go away.”

The most surprising thing of the evening was that, after a moments pause, the figure did exactly what he asked. One minute he was there, and the next he was gone. It was as though he had dissapparated, though even that usually gave some indication of what had just happened.

Harry took a cautious step forward, and then another, his eyes glued to the spot Voldemort had just been standing. It was only after fifteen minutes of deliberation that he moved to stand in the very spot Voldemort had been.

Nothing happened.

And after a while, Harry returned to the settee to sleep.

* * *

It was a day later that Voldemort made another appearance. He came up behind Harry and sat down next to him while he was in the process of pouring leftover soup into a bowl, causing him to start and drop both the soup container and the ceramic bowl, the latter which shattered upon hitting the ground. A benefit of being a hallucination seemed to be the ability to sit on thin air. His hands were folded neatly in his lap and the hood of his cloak was down, revealing long black hair that framed a thin, pale face.

Too bewildered to move, there were several minutes of stony silence before Harry recovered his wits enough to withdraw his wand to cast reparo on the bowl. The soup would have been too sullied for consumption, so Harry magicked it away without even attempting to salvage it. Now that he was sure Voldemort just was a hallucination, he was trying not to lose his cool. The stress would only make his ailment worse.

Voldemort watched him while he retrieved another container of soup from a cupboard, removed the spell that kept it fresh, and poured it into the newly-repaired bowl. He then cast a warming spell on it and took a seat at his kitchen table. It wasn’t long before Voldemort joined him, silently watching him spoon hot chicken noodle soup into his mouth.

He was so distracted by the apparition that he barely registered the taste of the soup. “Go away,” he tried again, but Voldemort didn’t disappear this time. The edges of his thin lips curled into a smile.

“I don’t even feel feverish,” he complained, spooning more soup into his mouth. His throat was feeling moderately less awful than it had yesterday. “And honestly, why does it have to be you? I’d rather hallucinate a dragon.”

Voldemort continued to smile, tilting his head like he had done yesterday. Harry scowled. He wished the hallucination could understand him so he could convey just how deeply he loathed it. But alas, Voldemort wasn’t really there; it was all in his head.

He finished his soup and washed the thicker portions of it down with a cup of pumpkin juice. All the while Voldemort continued to sit at the table, watching him with a grating sort of nonchalance. He didn’t try to speak to it again. Talking to oneself, even if it technically wasn’t to himself, was never a good thing. ‘Even in the wizarding world’, as Hermione had put it.

It followed him around the house as he went about his daily chores, and after a full day of being tailed by the hallucination, he adjusted to its presence just like he adjusted to every other peculiarity in his life.  

* * *

When it first touched him, Harry wasn’t ill. He hadn’t been ill for almost two days by that point, and he had managed to face Voldemort’s lingering presence with some modicum of calm and composure by explaining it away as a product of stress.

His calm and composure retreated as pale arms encircled his waist, holding him loosely while he stood over a pot of stew. Harry didn’t dare back up for fear of discovering its entire body had become solid. He stood quite still while he was embraced, his breath held and hands clenched tight around the edge of the kitchen counter. It took him several minutes of reassurances to finally convince himself it was safe to move, and he slowly turned his head to look into Voldemort’s bright red irises. Voldemort was, quite predictably, smiling and tilting his head at him.

Was he going mad? Harry closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to maintain some degree of composure. This wasn’t the first strange thing to have happened to him. There had to be an explanation, just like there had been for his and Voldemort’s connection and his ability to talk to snakes.

For now, the most he could do was ignore the apparition’s presence. It might go away on its own volition if he pretended it wasn’t there. He didn’t want to go seeking help until he was sure it as a permanent fixture, and even then, he had no desire to let his friends know he was seeing and touching something that wasn’t real. This sort of thing was par for the course with him, really, but he knew it would still cause Ron and Hermione and Ginny great distress, and that was the last thing any of them needed. They had their own problems to deal with.

He picked up his wooded spoon with a shaking hand and began to stir his stew. The arms around his waist didn’t move while he did this, but he did feel a chin settle on his shoulder. Harry wetted his lips. Hallucination or not, this was far more casual intimacy than he ever would had anticipated from Voldemort. Since it was a product of his mind, presumably distressed in some manner, shouldn’t it be threatening him? Trying to hurt him? He didn’t understand where this could be coming from. He’d never had any desire to get close to Voldemort, let alone receive affection from him.

The stew had started to boil over by the time he snapped out of his reverie. He quickly lowered the heat and mopped up the mess of beef stock and mushy vegetables with a tea cloth, feeling Voldemort’s arms shift around his waist to accommodate each movement. It wasn’t until he had finally decided to retreat to the safety of the kitchen table that Voldemort released him.

He spent a long time cradling his face in his hands and trying to quell the growing ball of anxious energy throbbing in his throat. _Just ignore it_ , he told himself, sliding his hands up and into his hair, curling them around the roots until an ache developed. _If you ignore it, it’ll go away._

For the rest of the day, whenever he spied Voldemort in his peripheral vision, the man was grinning.

* * *

_Dear Harry,_

_We haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s your cold? It’s gone now, isn’t it? If it isn’t, you might have the flu instead, and rejuvenation and pepper up potions don’t do a great deal to combat that. If you do have the flu, I can whip something else up for you. Oh, and I hope you’re able to eat marshmallows, because I’ve attached a packet. Ever since I introduced Ron to the muggle version of them he’s been going wild. Says they’re the best thing he’s ever tasted. I’m not going to be telling him about anything else or I suspect we’ll have another cupboard occupied by confectioneries._

_Take care Harry! We miss you._

_Love,_

_Hermione and Ron._

Smiling wider than he had in days, Harry re-read the contents of the letter several times over before he folded it into a neat rectangle and stashed it away for later viewing. The marshmallows Hermione had mentioned were in his lap, already open and spilling out onto his thighs; he absentmindedly shoved a couple into his mouth while he considered what edibles he could send back as thanks. That was twice now they had sent him a spontaneous gift. He owed them something special in return.

It was a shame Ginny wasn’t around to be consulted for ideas. While she was a mediocre cook, she came up with brilliant spins on muggle recipes. Harry wasn’t nearly as creative. In regards to cooking (and potions, now that he thought about it) he was much better at following instructions than being innovative.

Harry wondered if he should drop in instead of replying via owl, but quickly dashed that idea; he couldn’t risk them finding out something was wrong. Voldemort still hadn’t gone away. Ignoring him had done absolutely nothing; if anything, he was more vivid that he had ever been. Harry definitely had a harder time seeing through him than he had the first time he’d shown up.

The man in question was currently standing in the corner, little more than red eyes on a plane of white. It was dark enough in the room that his face was the only thing Harry was able to discern.

“Wish you’d stop watching me,” said Harry. Voldemort offered no response to this.

He rolled onto his back, folding his arms over his face to obscure Voldemort from view. He’d ceased trying to ignore him, but that didn’t mean he would indulge his delusion any more than necessary. At the very least he could try to keep its existence as tenuous as it currently was instead of encouraging it to claim even more of his psyche.

It was so warm in the room that Harry soon started to feel hot and sleepy. He made no effort to keep himself awake. It was early enough that a brief nap wouldn’t be detrimental to his sleeping pattern. As long as he was up by noon he would still be able to fall asleep later that night.

It was just as he was starting to doze that he felt thin fingers delve into the folds of his jacket. Jerking upright, he discovered Voldemort withdrawing the letter he had just tucked away, flipping it open while Harry gaped at him. Harry’s first instinct was to snatch it back, but he didn’t seem able to will himself to move. He was frozen in place, his eyes wide and his jaw slack, observing Voldemort while he read the letter from top to bottom.

The man then folded it back up and offered it for Harry to take. Harry’s hands were shaking so badly that he knew if he tried to retrieve it he’d only end up dropping it. At Harry’s lack of response, Voldemort rapped it over his knuckles in an attempt to get him moving.

“Don’t,” was the only word Harry managed to choke out. “Don’t,” he said again, jerking the assaulted hand away and cradling it to his chest. His knuckles were tingling where the paper had touched them.

As was customary for this version of Voldemort, he offered no verbal response. Instead he set the letter down on the coffee table and returned to his corner, acting as though nothing at all strange had occurred. That a hallucination hadn’t just picked up a physical object.

Harry numbly groped at his jacket pocket to make sure he hadn’t imagined the whole event. The letter was conspicuously absent. He decided right then and there that he was going to see a healer as soon as possible. There was something seriously wrong with him and it was only escalating the longer he left it.

He didn’t manage to nap that evening, nor did he fall asleep later that night. Every shadow and every creak was interpreted as his unwelcome house guest getting ever closer, and Harry didn’t want to be asleep when the man finally reached his destination. He feared what Voldemort would do if he were to come upon a vulnerable Harry. Now that he knew it was capable of initiating contact with real world objects, he wasn’t deluding himself into believing it was an illusion; it was real, it was dangerous, and it had only eyes for Harry.

* * *

Voldemort sat beside Harry in the St. Mungo’s second floor waiting room with his long legs crossed and his hands folded neatly in his lap. His waxy skin and red eyes should have drawn the attention of onlookers, much like Harry’s scar currently was, but Harry had discovered early that morning that no one but him could see the apparition. While he had strode his way through the heart of London, not a single person bat an eyelash at the tall, dark figure flanking him, and some even walked straight through him. The realisation that he was having a visual _and_ physical delusion should have been distressing, but Harry found it reassuring; it supported his initial idea that the figure didn’t exist outside the realm of imagination, which meant it could be made to go away with treatment.

It was possible he had some form of wizard schizophrenia, which, admittedly, he knew very little about, but his general knowledge of the ailment was steadily convincing him it was the source of his delusions. It could have been brought on by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – something Harry had resolutely denied having after Hermione made the suggestion, and then had gradually come to accept as an explanation for his behaviour. It was easier to say ‘my ptsd’s acting up’ than trying to explain his _feelings_ to his friends every time he experienced a flashback, or nightmare, or panic attack. He didn’t enjoy talking about how he felt and he never had, and it was almost impossible to talk at length while in the throes of a panic attack anyway. With the label ptsd at his disposal, he could indicate his needs in a single word.  

At the sound of his name, Voldemort perked up at the same time he did. They stood simultaneously, slinking past dozens of curious eyes on their way to an examination room. There was no healer in there as of yet. Harry took their absence as an opportunity to look around, circling the room and examining the various foreign objects scattered throughout. Nothing looked like what one would find in a muggle clinic. There were all sorts of potions and enchanted objects, and sitting on the healers desk, glittering under the overhead light, was a strange pink liquid swirling around in a jar. Harry hoped it wasn’t going to be used on him.

Voldemort, meanwhile, had seated himself in one of the three chairs set out before the healer’s desk. He was clearly exasperated by Harry’s behaviour, but did nothing to stop him from exploring the room like an excitable toddler. He merely sat as he had in the waiting room, with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. He looked to Harry like a tired parent.

“Harry Potter!” his healer exclaimed in greeting as they entered the room. Harry turned to find a petite blonde woman with bright blue eyes and an even brighter smile. She extended a hand to him, which Harry took and gave a firm shake. “My name’s Anita. I’m a junior healer here, but I was at the top of my class so I expect I’ll be able help you with whatever it is ailing you!”

She gestured to the seats in front of her desk and Harry adopted the one furthest from Voldemort. “Anita?” The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Weren’t you in…?”

“Ravenclaw? Yeah! I don’t think we ever spoke since I was a year above you.” Instead of sitting down, she withdrew her wand and tapped the end of it against a roll of parchment. “Now, what can I do for you, Harry?” Before he could reply, she continued. “The front desk tells me you weren’t entirely sure what floor to come to. If you could tell me why that is, it’d be a good start.”

Harry waited until he was sure she was finished before speaking. “Well, I thought I might have some sort of disease, but I don’t really know. I’m not sure if, uh… _this_ falls under a ‘disease’.”

“And what is ‘this’, Harry?”

Harry glanced at Voldemort, who was now watching the healer instead of his perpetual companion. His creased brow and thinned lips made his expression completely incomprehensible. He could have been anything from angry to constipated. “I’m hallucinating. At least, I think that’s what’s happening.” He turned his attention back on Anita. “No one else seems to be able to see what I’m seeing.”

“Well, you’re in luck!” Anita exclaimed; her enthusiasm for her job was putting Harry at ease. “That’s a common symptom of _many_ magical ailments! Our minds, magical as they are, are predisposed to that sort of thing.”

“I had no idea.” Harry was so relieved that he slumped in his chair. “Does that mean I’ll be able to get better?”

“We have to diagnose it first,” she said, turning to peer down at her parchment. A quill had been writing down every word they had exchanged. “To start with, why don’t you tell me when it began?”

“A couple of weeks ago,” he answered.

“And was anything strange occurring before then.”

Harry’s mind leapt immediately to the dreams he’d been having, and was still having. He hesitated, not entirely willing to divulge such private information. “I... I _have_ been having some strange dreams.”

Anita, not looking at him, was now sorting through her equipment, trying to decide between a bright green potion and something that looked unpleasantly like oil. “Are they dreams? Or are they nightmares?”

“I guess they’re a little of both.”

“Oh! How curious.” She opted for the green flask. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable with me knowing – I know you’re a private person, or at least try to be – but what happens in those dreams?”

She seemed to know exactly what Harry was thinking, which was a nice change of pace. He leaned back in his chair, at ease. “It’s of something that happened to me during the battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort’s there-“ Anita winced, but quickly hid it behind a broad smile. “Sorry,” Harry said quickly. “I mean, _he_ was there. But he’s not terrorising me or anything. He can’t. He’s this little helpless pink thing-“

“An infant?”

“Not really? But that is kind of what he looked like.” Harry shrugged. “I’ve been having that same dream for ages.”

“I see…” Anita uncorked the flask, offering it to Harry. “Take this. It’ll check your vitals and such for me. There are spells used for the same purpose, but they aren’t nearly as thorough.”

Harry gave the contents a sniff. It didn’t smell at all pleasant, like gym socks and bogies. Wrinkling his nose, he looked up at Antia imploringly.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. You’re the one wanting an answer to your problem!”

“She’s right, you know,” said a soft, silky voice, and the potion slid soundlessly from Harry’s fingers. It was caught by a fast-acting Anita just before it hit the ground.

Without thinking, he responded. “Go away.” Voldemort didn’t move, and Harry could feel himself starting to hyperventilate as Voldemort’s red irises drilled into him. “Go away, go away, _go away_ -“

“Harry? Harry, are you alright?” The potion was put aside as Anita descended to his level, her painted fingernails coming to rest on his trembling shoulders. “Please tell me what’s wrong. I’m here to help you.”

Harry gripped the arms of his chair so hard that the wood creaked. “It’s – it’s talking me,” he said with difficulty, wrenching his attention away from the pale face smiling wickedly at him. Voldemort extended a hand, running it down the nape of his neck, eliciting a shudder. “It’s talking to me,” he said again, his voice barely above a whisper. “That’s – normal, right? For hallucinations to talk? For them to touch you? Because he- he does that too.”

“He? You’re not hallucinating- him, are you?”

Harry confirmed her suspicions with a jerky nod of his head.

“Oh, merlin, that must be awful.” She gave his shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “But it’ll be alright Harry. Auditory hallucinations are – well, they’re not _normal_ , but they aren’t anything new.”

“What about physical ones?” he asked, fighting against the urge to slap away the fingers dancing on his neck. It was making the fine hairs there stand on end.

The way Anita frowned down at him wasn’t encouraging. “You mean a tactile hallucination? That’s, erm, a little more uncommon.” Upon seeing Harry’s mouth quiver, she added, “But don’t worry! We wouldn’t have a name for them if they hadn’t happened to other people. It just limits our diagnosis possibilities, especially as this hallucination seems to have been a long term presence.”

Twisting his neck to discreetly dislodge Voldemort’s fingers, Harry mumbled, “Yeah, it’s been about a fortnight since he showed up.”

Her lines in her face deepened with concern. “A fortnight? And he hasn’t changed at all?”

“He has.” Now she looked hopeful. “But he only got more… opaque? He used to be a lot more see-through.” The hopefulness was pinched out like candlelight. She reached for the green liquid on her desk.

“If you’re feeling up to it, I want you to take this. It’s possible you’ve been poisoned or cursed or something of the kind.”

Harry wasn’t sure how likely that was, and by the look on her face, Anita felt much the same way. He nevertheless accepted the potion and poured it into his gullet in hopes _something_ would show up. Even if it turned out to be an incurable illness, that was better than having no answer at all. The liquid was thick and slimy and tasted just like squashed caterpillars, a taste Harry was familiar with courtesy of Dudley and his friends. It was an effort not to vomit it back up the moment it hit his tongue. Still fighting the urge to gag, Harry handed the empty flask back to Anita and anxiously awaited the results. Voldemort had ceased touching his neck, so that came as a small comfort.

It was several minutes before something happened: the quill floating above Anita’s desk quivered against some unseen force, and then thrust itself towards the waiting parchment and began to write. Harry could see little bits and pieces of what it was writing, but he didn’t understand most of it; the sentences were comprised of medical jargon, similar to that of muggle medical terms.

When it was done, Anita plucked the parchment out of the air and read the text. Harry didn’t ask if he could have a look. He wouldn’t know what it was trying to tell him, anyway.

“Well,” she said after her third re-read. “Other than being a bit tired and stressed, you seem perfectly fine.” She worried a pretty pink lip between her teeth. “Honestly, Harry, I think... I think this might just be a stress response. An unusual one, but I don’t see anything here that suggests it’s something serious.”

“It doesn’t feel like ‘just stress’,” he said. He couldn’t help the note of irritation in his voice. He felt like Anita was dismissing his needs in favour of a quick fix.

Catching onto this, Anita offered Harry a reassuring smile. “I can do some more tests, if you like. These ones will be a little more invasive, but if there’s anything to be found, they’ll find it.”

“I want the extra tests,” Harry said immediately.

Having predicted this answer, Anita’s hands had already sought the cabinet beside her and were in the process of procuring the necessary documents. “You can have some blood drawn today,” she said as she folded one of the pieces of parchment and slid it into a small plastic bag along with a vial. This was handed to Harry. “Just take it to the front desk, they’ll know where to direct you. As for the other tests…” The next pieces of parchment were significantly larger than the one he’d just been given. “You can fill these out today, but we probably won’t be able to fit you in for them until sometime next week. Is that alright, or do you feel this is urgent?”

Stressed though he was, Harry didn’t want to be an inconvenience. There were other people – people with serious terminal illnesses – that needed these resources more than he did, so he shook his head. He could wait. If Voldemort was indeed just an illusion, Harry wasn’t in any life threatening danger.

“Alright then,” said Anita, handing him the papers. “And before you go, would you like me to prescribe you something for stress? You don’t have to take anything, of course, even if I give you a script, but it might be a good idea to have the option, just in case things get too much for you.”

“I would take whatever it is she’s offering, Harry.” Voldemort’s voice was so close to his ear that it reverberated through his skull. “You look like you need some sleep.”

Standing in one fluid movement, Harry vacated the chair and put a comfortable distance between himself and Voldemort. "I- I think I will, yes,” was his stuttered answer. He glared at Voldemort to make sure he didn’t think Harry was taking his advice – but wait, hallucinations couldn’t have thoughts, could they? Maybe he really was going mad.

Fortunately he wasn’t given much time to dwell on his state of mind; Anita had summoned over a small cardboard box and was carefully filling it with an assortment of murky potions. Once done, she helped Harry slide his pieces of parchment between the bottles and handed him the box.

“Any time you need a re-fill, just visit the front desk. I’ve left a script in the bottom for you.”

Harry forced himself to smile at Anita. “Thanks. I’ll see you in about a week, then, shall I?”

“If your problem hasn’t resolved itself before them! Fingers crossed.” Anita opened the door for him. “There’s instructions on how to take the potions attached to the script. Take care.”

Upon arriving home, Harry drank as much of the potions as was permitted and waited to see what would happen, not daring to be hopeful.

Hours later, Voldemort still hadn’t disappeared.

* * *

 “Harry!”

The sound of Ginny’s voice reached him before the sight of her fiery red hair, which was quite literally ‘fiery’ as her face was currently constructed of flames and embering wood. Harry managed to restrain his reaction to a strangled grunt of surprise instead of whacking his knee on the coffee table like he had the last time Ginny had greeted him in this manner. He wrangled up a smile and hunched down before her, his hands hanging over his thighs.

“Hey Gin. Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“I could say the same to you.” Even with most of her features obscured by embers, Harry could tell she wasn’t happy. His smile receded in an instant.

“Do you want me to come see you now?” he asked, hoping to avoid a rowel.

“What, to placate me?” Ginny sounded genuinely hurt. “Of course I’d love you to come and see me! But you have a lot of explaining to do first – and not just about why you haven’t visited your ill girlfriend for almost an entire month.”

Harry grimaced. “I’ve had other things on my mind, that’s all.” He knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that it had been the wrong thing to say.

“You’re making it really hard not to be angry at you, you know. The least you could have done was respond to my letter.”

“What letter?”

“I sent you one almost a week ago!”

“Oh.” Harry peered around his lounge room in hopes he’d simply misplaced it. The only things he could see were a few scattered magazines and one of his textbooks. “I must’ve dropped it or something.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now.” Ginny sighed. “I have more immediate concerns than a letter, like why you were at St. Mungos? – Oh, don’t look surprised. The Daily Prophet was so excited by the tidbit of news that they practically had an aneurysm. It wasn’t front page news, mind.”

Harry groaned. The last thing he needed was the public contemplating his health. “Should I be expecting a visit from Ron and Hermione?”

“I’ve already told them it’s probably something to do with your ptsd,” she replied. “They won’t drop by until you’re ready for them, but they will be sending your packages. Food and such.”

Harry hadn’t yet found the time to repay their kindnesses. His stomach gave a guilty lurch. “They don’t have to do that.”

“But they’re going to do it anyway,” Ginny said simply. “How are you, then? _Is_ it the ptsd?”

“I should be asking how _you_ are.”

“Too bad. I got there first.”

“Fine, yeah, it is, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with. I went to St. Mungo’s for some potions to calm me down.” It wasn’t a lie, but nor had he divulged the entire truth; he didn’t want Ginny worrying about his health when she had her own mysterious ailment to think of. “Your turn,” he finished. He was eager for some good news, and he was anticipating some as Ginny appeared to be in better health, if only slightly.

“I’m not really well enough to return to work yet, but I’m not worse.” Her smile visibly wavered. Harry could see that even in the flames. “I think I _might_ be a getting better.”

So much for good news. “Well, that’s- that’s good?” His voice wasn’t very convincing. He wished he could reach out and hug her. “Can I come over? Can I see you?” he asked at once. “I understand if you’re still angry, but I want to see you. Maybe we could have dinner together, or…”

“It’s a little late for dinner; mum and dad are asleep, but how about tomorrow?” Her smile had returned. Harry, however, wore a deep, concentrated frown that Ginny had said on several occasions was ‘obnoxiously endearing’. “Don’t look so worried, Harry! I’m not going to expire in the night or disappear or whatever other perilous situations you’re coming up with. I really haven’t been that bad! And I’m not saying you _can’t_ come over; you can. You’ll just have to be quiet so you don’t wake up my dad. He starts work at five tomorrow.”

“I’ll be right over,” he threw himself upright, and had retrieved a handful of floo powder when he heard Ginny laugh.

“Put some pants on first! You can’t come over here in boxers and a dressing gown!”

They shared the couch overnight. After returning from study the next evening, Harry sat down for dinner with the Weasley’s for the first time in months. It was the happiest he’d been in a long while, and Voldemort lingering over Ginny’s chair like a vulture, smiling across the table while Harry ate, wasn’t enough to ruin it for him.

* * *

An appointment with St. Mungo’s diagnostic team had been arranged for Wednesday at noon, but he had cancelled it in favour of spending time with his girlfriend. It had been worth it, Harry thought, even if Voldemort was starting to grate his nerves down to tenuous threads. The apparition might have been annoying, but he hadn’t escalated things enough for Harry to worry.

At least, that had been the case until the following Wednesday, where a startlingly opaque Voldemort had followed him into the bathroom for his morning shower. When he turned to snarl at his unwelcome guest he wasn’t able to see the tiles through Voldemort’s body anymore. He was almost wholly solid.

“Get out!” he shouted. Voldemort merely smiled at him, and Harry ended up resorting to undressing inside his shower and tossing his pyjamas onto the floor. The only problem was, he hadn’t had the forethought to grab himself a towel before undressing. The rack was on the other side of the bathroom, and in order to reach it he would have to walk straight past Voldemort while stark naked.

He stood inside the shower, under the spray of water, for almost two hours. It turned cold after the first hour. He’d been hoping the apparition would decide to wander off elsewhere, but no such thing happened. His tall shadow remained visible behind the shower curtain and didn’t moved an inch in all the time Harry bathed.

It was spring, and the cold soon got too much for Harry to bear. He was shaking like an aspen. With his hands curled into fists at his sides, Harry stepped out the shower and hurried over to the towel rack, flinging one off and wrapping it around his waist as fast as possible. He heard Voldemort purr appreciatively from the sink. Face burning red, Harry pulled on his underwear and trousers while still sodding wet, and then slid on a t-shirt, getting dressed as fast as the drag of fabric on wet skin would permit.

“You needn’t be shy,” he heard Voldemort say as he nigh ran out into the hallway.

* * *

 "Harry! Step away! You mustn’t touch it again-!”

His eyes snapped open. Not because of the dream he had been having, but because he felt the rough edge of – something scrape across his cheek, nicking the hard edge of his jaw. It tumbled down into his lap as he sat up, and squinting through the dark, he was able to identify it as a roll of parchment. A small roll, no larger than his palm. He wiped the edge of his eyes with a thumb and yawned, reaching for his wand he always kept stowed under his pillow.

Except it wasn’t there. He tried the bedside table next, and then the floor, pawing around beneath his mattress in search of the slip of wood. He came up empty handed. As a last resort, he whispered “Lumos” under his breath and peered hopefully around his bedroom. His wand did indeed light up, casting the room in a saturating glow, but it wasn’t because of his command. Standing on the opposite side of his bed with Harry’s wand in hand was Voldemort.

If this really was a hallucination, it was one hell of a hallucination. He shakily pushed himself upright and groped around for something he could use to defend himself, something hard and blunt, even though there was little he could do to combat a hallucination.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Harry,” Voldemort said, his voice deceptively gentle. He pointed the illuminated tip of Harry’s wand at the parchment sitting on the bed. “It’s your letter. You should read it.”

“My-?” He picked it up more out of confusion than any desire to oblige Voldemort’s instructions. Flipping it open, he didn’t even need to begin reading to recognise that the small, curving letters had been written by his girlfriend.

This was the letter she had referenced.

“Did you take this?” He jerked his head up, his eyes wide and bewildered. “You aren’t _real_! You’re a hallucination! How can you be doing these things?”

“You’re still clinging onto that explanation, are you? Very well.” As Voldemort started to close the space between them, Harry instinctively grabbed at the closest hard object in the room, his lantern, and held it out in front of him like one would a dagger. Ginny’s letter floated to the floor.

“Don’t come any closer!” he snarled.

Voldemort laughed, high and cold. It was a laugh he shared with his elder counterpart. “Aren’t I a hallucination? Why should you be so frightened of me?”

Harry opened his mouth to retort, and then closed it. He didn’t know how to respond.

“A ‘tactile hallucination’, I believe it was. If that’s the case, I must be quite a vivid experience.”

Harry’s shoulders hit the wall. He didn’t take his eyes off of Voldemort, still holding the lantern out in front of him, now more like a shield than a weapon.

“Voldemort’s dead. He’s dead. He died years ago.” It was hard to tell if he was more angry or more frightened, his voice furious and wavering in equal measure. “You can’t be here because you’re _dead_!”

“I feel surprisingly alive for someone who’s dead,” said Voldemort, his voice genial. He was so close to Harry now that Harry could feel the air shifting around his body, and that – that couldn’t be right, because hallucinations couldn’t move the air. They couldn’t hold physical objects. They couldn’t produce magic. The answer to his unspoken question was on the threshold of conscious thought, struggling against the tides of denial Harry was stirring into motion.

“Don’t come any closer,” he snarled again, a futile effort. Voldemort hadn’t listened to him thus far, so why would he listen now?

“You need to be grounded, Harry. You need a tether to reality.” He felt Voldemort’s hands descended to his sides and shuddered violently. “I can help you with that.”

“Don’t touch me, get away from me-!” That traitorous thought – this is real, he’s real – had fought past his defences, and he was starting to hyperventilate, his breaths coming out as doggish pants. The lantern slipped out of his hands. “Don’t-!”

“Hush. I’m not going to hurt you.” And true to his word, a soft pressure was applied to Harry’s sides, borderline pleasant as Voldemort explored each ridge of his ribs. The gesture might have been comforting were it being done by literally anyone else.

He curled his hands around Voldemort’s skinny wrists in an attempt to push him off, but Voldemort was both taller and larger than him, and a great deal stronger as a consequence. Every time Harry so much as nudged him he had no trouble whatsoever resuming exactly what he had been doing.

“This can’t be happening.” His voice was a horrified whisper, no louder than his short, stuttering breaths. “This can’t be happening to me.”

Voldemort chuckled. “Strange that you should think that since oddities have been happening to you since the age of ten.”

A cool mouth covered his own, breathing air into his lungs while he withered in a futile attempt to free himself, his hands curling into fists and then unfurling, his torso jerking beneath Voldemort’s imposing weight. A tongue lashed the roof of his mouth and he tried to twist away.

“Get off of me!” he babbled, speaking directly into Voldemort’s mouth. The other man wasn’t deterred in the least, his long fingers disappearing beneath his pyjama shirt, a thumb sliding over a soft nipple. It became a hard nub under the ministrations. “Don’t touch me! I don’t want you! I _hate_ you!”

“Such lies, Harry,” Voldemort murmured against his lips.

And then Voldemort did the absolute worst thing he could have done: he was gentle. He didn’t bite, scratch, pull, or invade; he used soft touches and placating kisses to break down Harry’s resolve, patiently working him over until he had neither the strength nor will to stop Voldemort from doing what he was intent on doing. He made Harry scream with pleasure, not pain, and when all was done, Harry curled up on his side with shame broiling beneath the surface of his skin.

Voldemort wrapped his arms possessively around his thin waist, pressing a kiss to each bob of his spine. “Go to sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

Despite his every instinct screaming for him to remain awake, Harry’s eyes suddenly felt impossibly heavy. Within minutes, he had fallen into a deep slumber.

That night he didn’t dream of Kings Cross Station.

* * *

Harry was too numb to react. He felt nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing but the letter clutched in his hands.

_Harry, this is Arthur. I tried to contact you this morning, but you didn’t respond when I called through floo. Wherever you are, I hope this reaches you soon. Come to the Burrow as soon as possible. Ginny has-_

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a shuddering breath. The image that came to mind, unbidden, was that of an eleven year old Ginny sprawled out on damp stone, as pale as marble and breathing so imperceptibly that she might as well have been dead.

“He was right, you know,” said Voldemort as he settled onto the couch beside Harry. He dragged his fingers through the back of Harry’s hair, who did nothing to stop him. “You shouldn’t touch the truly lost. You never know what’ll happen.”

“You aren’t real. This isn’t real,” he whispered, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to deceive himself this time.

Voldemort ran a thumb from the edge of his lips to his jaw, smiling fondly at the sharp exhale it elicited. “Again, you lie to yourself. Even your dreams know how wrong you are, Harry.” He nudged his pointed nose into Harry’s cheek, seeking the edge of his mouth. Voldermort’s lips were as cold as the rest of him. “I’m going to break that tether you’re holding onto. It’s about time you caught up with your subconscious.”

“Break _what_?”

“Your wilful ignorance, Harry. It needs to end.”

Harry opened his eyes, moving to a stand. An arm coming up to wind tight around his torso prevented him from getting far. “Get the fuck off me! I don’t want you to – I need to go – I need Ginny–!”

“What you need is to _listen_ to me,” said Voldemort gently, dragging Harry back down and into his lap. “If you’re not going to listen to _yourself_ , then listen to _me_.”

“You can’t do this.” The hands were beginning to shake. “Just let me go. My girlfriend-“

“Is dead. She’s dead and moved on.”

“Shut up!” Harry shouted. The letter had slipped out of his hand. “This is a trick, this isn’t real! She’s not dead! You’re a liar!”

“Do you still not recognise Arthur Weasley’s handwriting after all these years? Or do you think I, having been with you throughout the night, managed to forge it?”

He didn’t dare look at the letter to confirm whose handwriting it had been. Breathing hard, he tried desperately to wrestle his way out of Voldemort’s vice-like grip.

“I’m not going to let you do this!”

“If you think you can stop me, feel free to try.” The grip on him tightened. “Let’s not dawdle any longer. This has been a long time coming.”

“Don’t-!”

“You brought this on yourself, Harry.”

Harry dug his nails into Voldemort’s forearms, trying to compel him to let go.

“You touched something you knew you shouldn’t have touched. You provided it with a route out of limbo, clinging onto the very recesses of your mind it had occupied all those years.”

His nails were starting to draw blood, and yet Voldemort didn’t so much as flinch.

“Dumbledore never could have known how dire your situation was, of course. He only knew the unpredictability of the powers that be. I don’t think he ever would have guessed I could have returned with you.”

“Stop,” Harry snarled, his voice hoarse. “It’s lies, this is all lies!”

“So I came back with you. I spent years waiting – something I had become quite practised at after living in your unexceptional head for so long. I absorbed your life-force as slowly as possible to avoid making my presence known, and then who should move into your house but Ginny Weasley!”

“Don’t you dare talk about her!”

“Not to worry; I don’t care to discuss her beyond a mention.” Harry wished he could dig his fingers so deep that he would hit bone. He had never wanted Voldemort to suffer more than he did right now.

“It took me quite a long time, but I eventually figured out how to absorb _her_ energy instead. Eventually I had enough of it that proximity wasn’t even necessary, though her moving did slow down the process some.

“Of course, it was around that time that I realised that a physical body wouldn’t enable me to interact with the world as though I were alive. I remain restricted by that station you so frequently dream of.”

It was painful to hear. To recognise how foolish he had been, how ignorant. Harry had wanted so desperately for things to be normal that he had been willing to overlook all the warning signs, and now Ginny…

Harry’s throat tightened. He wasn’t able to force out more than a whimper of protest.

“But I can interact with you,” Voldemort continued. The welts in his forearm were starting to dribble fine rivulets of blood. “I will never be truly alone, all thanks to you and your _compassion_.”

Harry released Voldemort’s broken flesh so he could drop his face into his hands. He couldn’t stop shivering.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Harry? There’s no heaven or hell for us, assuming either of those places exist. You will never be reunited with your dear Ginny.”

A loud sob tore from his throat, emptied into slippery hands. He didn’t know when he’d started to cry but the tears were coming hot and fast, making his face warm and itchy.

“One day you’ll be stuck on the threshold, just like me, and then I’ll be the only thing you have left.”

Voldemort held him like a lover, soothing a long-fingered hand through his dishevelled hair while he wept, pressing kisses to his hot skin and brushing away the tears before they could drip off his chin. He was so gently piecing back together the pieces he had deliberately and meticulously shattered.

“That’s it, Harry. Cry if you need to. We won’t leave until you’re done.”

 

The Daily Prophet snapped a picture of Harry Potter as he fled London. A few who saw it in the morning paper noticed an additional shadow trailing along behind him, seemingly coming out of nowhere, but no one thought anything of it; the world was too busy mourning the loss of their savoir to give the photo proper consideration. In time, the photo was forgotten, and no one ever did see Harry Potter again. 


End file.
